Every detail that goes into space exploration matters. While habitat design or making sure a rocket is powerful enough to launch supplies are obviously important, what may be less apparent are the smaller things, including the solvents used in manufacturing materials for spaceflight. On Aug. 6, a 22-second hot fire test in the East Test …
The Space Launch System (SLS) rocket core stage for the Artemis I lunar mission has successfully completed its first four Green Run tests and is building on those tests for the next phase of checkout as engineers require more capability of the hardware before hot-firing the stage and its four powerful engines. On Aug. 5, engineers at NASA’s Stennis Space …
The first pieces of flight hardware for Gateway’s Habitation and Logistics Outpost (HALO) have arrived at Thales Alenia Space Italy (TASI) sent by NASA’s HALO contractor Northrop Grumman. These forgings are the base metal that is used to create the pressure shell, barrel sections, and interface rings for HALO. The manufacturing process is based on the same process employed by …
The second to last piece of hardware for the Artemis I test flight around the Moon has arrived at the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The launch vehicle stage adapter (LVSA) connects the core stage of NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS) rocket to the upper stage, called the Interim Cryogenic Propulsion Stage. The cone-shaped connector also helps protect the RL10 engine …
Teams at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, moved the Artemis I launch vehicle stage adapter for NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS) rocket onto the agency’s Pegasus barge July 17. The adapter is the cone shaped piece that connects the rocket’s core stage and interim cryogenic propulsion stage (ICPS). Pegasus will transport the flight hardware to NASA’s Kennedy Space …
Technicians at NASA’s Stennis Space Center have completed the third of eight tests in the Green Run test series for the Space Launch System rocket. Each test is designed to gradually bring the rocket’s core stage — the same hardware that will be used for Artemis I — to life for the first time. >>Read more
Technicians at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida recently finished meticulously applying more than 180 blocks of ablative material to the heat shield for the Orion spacecraft set to carry astronauts around the Moon on Artemis II. The heat shield is one of the most critical elements of Orion and protects the capsule and the astronauts inside from the …
About a dozen technicians and engineers from Exploration Ground Systems worked together recently at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center to carry out the first step in stacking the twin solid rocket boosters that help launch NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS) rocket for the first Artemis lunar mission. Inside the Florida spaceport’s Rotation, Processing and Surge Facility, the NASA and Jacobs team completed a pin. …
Today is my first day fully transitioned as the head of NASA’s Human Exploration and Operations Mission Directorate, and I am honored to lead a new era of human spaceflight. You’ll hear me say this time and time again: exploration is a team sport. I saw that in low-Earth orbit with NASA, industry and our …
Three panels for the Artemis II Orion stage adapter were built by AMRO Fabricating Corp. in South El Monte, California and shipped to Marshall where engineers and technicians from NASA are joining them using a sophisticated friction-stir welding process to form the Orion stage adapter. This critical part of NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS) rocket will send the Artemis …
